Message on the screen says "don't make plans, you're broke"

Continuing my trip back through the 2006 album charts.

29/01/06 : Stars Of CCTV - Hard-fi

We're on a proper run of ownership here - I can't say I've listened to it in ages, but it's one I know so well I can hear most of the songs in my head (although I'm expecting there to be a few I've completely forgotten exist).

And the good news is that I still like it.  It's not the greatest musicianship or vocals, but there's plenty of enthusiasm there and the songs have that little bit extra that these things to elevate them above the crowd - generally with a nice hooky chorus to boot.  "Cash Machine" (depicting a state that far too many people still find depressingly relevant), "Unnecessary Trouble", "Living For The Weekend" and the title track (although I'm not convinced by the use of falsetto) stand out for me, but I actually enjoyed (and remembered) most of them.  One track I didn't recognise because it wasn't on my version was their cover of The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" - it's an interesting choice, if not exactly essential listening.  I also like the album cover because it's simple but effective and the album also has the distinction of taking us to fourteen albums owned for the year.

We're at #3 in the charts this week on its 30th week of a 48 week run - it debuted at #6 and looked to be sliding out after a decent enough run, but I guess one of the singles ("Cash Machine", Wikipedia tells me) reignited the public's attention and it shot back up into the top five and actually made it all the way to the top in its 29th week.  The rest of the top five were Arctic Monkeys, Richard Ashcroft (both new entries), Editors and Daniel O'Donnell (another new entry and we fortunately manage to avoid him again!).  

And we have one more new entry in the top ten - The Kooks (#9) about to start an impressive 80 week run, which is interesting when you compare it with Arctic Monkeys initial 40 week run.  Especially when you consider The Kooks pretty much disappeared from the charts in '08 (except for a single week in '21) and the Arctic Monkeys debut is currently on a 167 week run (it's been in the charts consistently since the end of '19!).

Back to Hard-fi, Wikipedia tells us it was recorded in all sorts of odd places - bedrooms, pubs and a disused minicab office and then played back in the producer's car.  The critics were very impressed with it with NME making it their album of the year and it went on to sell over a million copies globally.  And it feels like there must be plenty of interesting stories about this album - but Wikipedia is just not delivering them to me.

"Customers also listened to" Klaxons, Maximo Park, The Futureheads and The Pigeon Detectives - a panoply of 00s lad bands.  And Hard-fi were up there with the best of them, but only for this album, I'm afraid - the rest of their output doesn't, for me, come close to matching up to this.

22/01/06 - Not as great as I was hoping for
05/02/06 - Another perfectly fine album